line and length...

As usual, I spent a few days last week watching the cricket. As a member at Trent Bridge, I had secured tickets for all of the scheduled five days of the Test match against Australia, and was very much looking forward to a few days watching the cricket unfold before me in one of my favourite places in the world with some of my closest friends (and my father-in-law, who loves cricket and with whom I am delighted to spend a couple of days at the match).

It didn’t quite work out like that: after a record-breaking first day on Thursday that saw the Australians bowled out for 60 well before lunch, the match was over after 40 minutes of play on Saturday morning and with nearly three full days left to play. The result meant that England regained the Ashes, and it was a truly extraordinary performance, so it’s pretty hard to complain, even if it meant that I watched significantly less cricket than I had expected.

I’ve watched a lot of cricket at Trent Bridge over the years, but this match was by some distance the most extraordinary, with Thursday’s play in particular being one for the record books. 5 wickets down in the first 25 balls… and the sight of Stuart Broad roaring in to bowl on the first morning of the match with six slips and a short leg.

It was a good day to be in your seat for the first over of the morning, anyway.  Ten years ago, in this same fixture, Andrew Strauss took one of the great slip catches.... and I was at the bar and have never been allowed to forget it, reminded each time the catch appears on the television - which is more often than you might think.  Ben Stokes took perhaps its equal when he flew impossibly through the air at fifth slip to catch Adam Voges.  I damn well saw that one.

I’ve seen Australia retain the Ashes at Trent Bridge no fewer than three times; I’ve seen Shane Warne dancing on the pavilion roof with a stump on two occasions. Although I’ve seen England win Ashes tests here twice (2005 and 2013, both times in dramatic circumstances), England have never before clinched the Ashes at Trent Bridge in the whole history of the game. I might have been robbed of a couple of days drinking in the sun with my friends, but I did watch history being made.

Here are a few of the records from the match (borrowed from here):

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Chris Rogers’ maiden duck: Rogers fell for a duck, the first of his Test career, in the third ball of the Test.

Stuart Broad’s 300th Test wicket: The wicket of Rogers was Broad’s 300th wicket in his 83rd Test. He became the fifth Englishman and 29th player to take 300 Test wickets. He also became the second Englishman after Ian Botham (and the 13th cricketer) to the 2000 runs-300 double. Of Englishmen, Broad took most Test matches to reach the 300-wicket landmark. The others to have achieved this are Anderson, Botham, Bob Willis and Fred Trueman.

Both Aussie openers getting out for ducks: This was something rare for Australia. Having produced quality opening batsmen in recent years, it was the first such instance for Australia in this century. The last such occasion was in 1999 at Kandy against Sri Lanka when Michael Slater and Greg Blewett both scored ducks. The last in an Ashes Test was way back in 1950 at The Brisbane where the openers were Jack Moroney and Arthur Morris.

Steven Smith’s single-digit score run: Smith had scored 7 and 8 at Edgbaston, and was out for 6 in the first innings at Trent Bridge. This was the first time he got out in single digits in more than two consecutive innings in 32 Tests and 61 innings. To make matter worse, he was out for 5 in the second innings.

Stuart Broad’s five wickets in 19 balls: Broad dismissed Rogers, Smith, Shaun Marsh, Adam Voges and Michael Clarke in his first 19 balls (3.1 overs). This is the joint- fewest number of balls to take five wickets from the start of an innings. He equalled the record of Ernie Toshack who did the same against India at The Gabba in 1947.

111 balls and all out: Australia’s first innings lasted just 111 balls (18.3 overs). It is the shortest completed first innings of a Test. The previous shortest was also by Australia (113 balls) when they were all out for 53 against England at Lord’s in 1896.

All out before lunch on first day of a Test: Australian batsmen could aggregate just 60 and were all out about ten overs before lunch on Day One. This was the only the fourth instance of a team getting all out in the first session of a Test. The previous instances were Australia (53) against England at Lord’s in 1896; India (76) against South Africa at Motera in 2008; and New Zealand (45) against South Africa at Newlands in 2012-13.

Extras (14) being the highest score for Australia: Only two Australians could get to double digits in the first innings — Clarke (10) and Mitchell Johnson (13), but England conceded 14 extras. This was the first instance in The Ashes and 16th time overall in a completed innings. The last such instance was for England against West Indies at Sabina Park in 2004 where extras (60) beat the highest-scoring batsmen Mark Butcher and Nasser Hussain. Both scored 58.

Records related to Stuart Broad’s 8 for 15:

They the best figures by an Englishman in Tests since Jim Laker’s 10 for 53 and 9 for 37 at Old Trafford in Ashes 1956.

They are the best figures before lunch on Day One of a Test surpassing Graham McKenzie’s 6 for 34 against India at MCG in 1967-68.

These are the best figures at Trent Bridge in Tests eclipsing Muttiah Muralitharan’s 8 for 70 against England in 2006. The previous best by an English bowler at the venue was 8 for 107 by Bernard Bosanquet in Ashes 1905.

These are the third cheapest eight-wicket haul in Tests after George Lohmann’s 8 for 7 against South Africa at Port Elizabeth in 1896 and Johnny Briggs’ 8 for 11 against South Africa at Newlands in 1889.

This is the first instance of a bowler taken eight or more wickets and all wickets were caught at slips but none by the wicketkeeper. James White also took eight wicket all caught without involving a wicketkeeper, but one of his wickets was a caught and bowled at Adelaide Oval in Ashes 1929-30.

Ian Bell’s dismissal on 1: Bell was out for 1 for the 12th time in Tests. Among proper batsmen this is the most number of times a batsman has got out for 1. He went past Sachin Tendulkar and Rod Marsh, who had got out on one 11 times in their careers. Of all players Anderson (14 times) and Harbhajan Singh (13) are the only players who have got this more times than Bell.

Joe Root’s century batting in the second innings on Day One: By the end of Day One, Root had completed his century and was unbeaten on 124. He managed to score a century on the first day of a Test despite batting second. This is only the fifth instance of a batsman doing the same. Alviro Peterson (103*) for South Africa against New Zealand at Newlands in 2012-13 was the last to do so after New Zealand were bowled out for 45. Root’s 124* is also the second-highest score in the second innings of a Test on Day One. The highest is 151 by Marcus Trescothick against Bangaldesh at Chester-le-Street in 2005.

Lead of 214 by Day One: England scored 274 for 4 on Day One and led Australia by 214 runs. It is the third-highest lead for a team on the first day. The top two on the list are 286 by South Africa against Zimbabwe at Newlands in 2005 and 233 by England against Australia at Lord’s in 1893.

Both openers scoring ducks in first innings and 50 in the second: Rogers and David Warner were both out for ducks in the first innings and scored half-centuries in the second. Interestingly, it is only the third such instance in history. The last two were for India (Devang Gandhi and Sadagoppan Ramesh) against New Zealand at Mohali in 1999-00 and for New Zealand (Martin Guptill and Tom Latham) against England at Lord’s in 2015.

Four six-wicket hauls by different bowlers from the same team in four consecutive test innings: Anderson (6 for 47) and Steven Finn (6 for 79) took six-fors at Edgbaston. Broad (8 for 15) and Stokes (6 for 36) did the same at Trent Bridge. This is the first occasion for any team that four different bowlers took six or more wickets in consecutive innings.

Alastair Cook becomes first Englishman to appear in 50 Test wins: The win by an innings and 78 runs is the 50th win for England involving Cook. He became the first English player to reach this feat; 27 others have achieved this for other teams. The next best for England is Anderson with 49. If he hadn’t been absent, he also would have completed this milestone.

Alastair Cook wins two Ashes series at home as captain: Cook had earlier led England to an Ashes win in England in 2013, and did the same in 2015. In doing so he emulated WG Grace (who had done it 1888, 1893, 1896 and 1899) and Mike Brearley (1977 and 1981).

100th innings victory: England became the first team to win 100 Tests by an innings. This was England’s 961st Test. They have won 344, lost 278 and drawn 339 matches. Australia is next with 85 innings victories.

7th Test defeat for Michael Clarke as captain in The Ashes: Clarke became the Australian captain with most defeats in Ashes Tests. He surpassed Billy Murdoch, Bill Woodfull, Allan Border and Ricky Ponting, all of whom had six defeats in Ashes under their leadership.

32nd Ashes series win for England: With this win, England regained the urn. Now both Australia and England have won 32 Ashes apiece, while five series were drawn of the 69 played so far.

Stuart Broad’s 8th Man of the Match award: Broad was adjudged Man of the Match for his 8 for 15. This is his eighth Man of the Match award in Tests. Of the current English players no one has so many: Anderson is next with seven. It is to be noted that Broad’s awards have all come at home. Botham (12) leads the way for England.

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Cricket's a fascinating sport, isn't it?

All this and we left the ground on Saturday with enough time to get up to Hillsborough to watch Sheffield Wednesday’s first game of the season against Bristol City. Good times! (£42 worth of good times, if you can believe that for game of Championship football.  That incredible first day at Trent Bridge cost me £85 and seems much the better value, to be honest).

what a perfect waste of time.....

There have got to be worse things to be doing on a Wednesday, right?

.... and a Thursday.  And a Friday.  And a Saturday.  And a Sunday.

If there's a better game than cricket, then I don't know what it is.  There also can't be many better places in the world to watch a Test Match than Trent Bridge.

The first Test Match I ever attended was here in 1993.  It's not really a coincidence that, after I moved to Nottingham, I made sure that I lived within easy walking distance of the ground.  Fifteen years later, and I'm now a member and I'm getting into the habit of attending every single day of the Test here.  Every day is different: Wednesday and Thursday, I'm attending with my father-in-law.  After the success of doing the same thing at the Ashes Test last year. He loves cricket and lives in France, so it's really special to be able to spend time with him watching a game we both love.  He watched Dennis Compton batting here, you know....  The weekend is different, and I'll be watching with my friends and drinking beer and talking nonsense.  Various other people I know are up for the game too, and I'll pop out during the lunch and tea intervals to catch up with them and to have a drink.  You have to love a sport that stops for meals, right?

The best thing about being a member?  I get access to the pavilion and can have decent pint and a civilised toilet break away from the hustle and bustle of the hoi polloi.  At my age, it's the little luxuries like this that make life tolerable.

It's the Australians visiting for the fourth test of the Ashes series in 2015... so something to look forward to already.  Even if you don't particularly like cricket, then this is still a splendid way to spend a few days, sitting in the sun, drinking beer and chatting to your mates.  Perfect.

Who's in?

save me from this squeeze....

alive? dead?

Is there any better feeling on a beautiful, sunny summer’s afternoon than slipping away from work early so that you can shut yourself in a darkened room and watch a bit of cricket? Oh, I'm so glad you agree.  It’s hot and it’s sunny and England are playing Australia at Old Trafford in the third test of an Ashes summer. A series, what’s more, that England are leading 2-0.

In? Out?

Blissful.

I hope I get to see some more controversial and incomprehensible DRS decision before the close of play. Isn’t it delicious and somehow so perfect for a game like cricket that a review decision can now be both Out and Not Out to the same ball depending upon which side asked for the review and the umpire's original decision?

It’s all a bit Schrödinger's cat: for the duration of the review, the batsman is BOTH alive AND dead, all at the same time.  What's hard to understand about that?

dead? alive?

It's such a simple game, isn't it?  I don't know why people make such a fuss about the rules.  It's easy: you have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.  When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

As Sarah Bernhardt said, "I do love cricket - it's so very English".

from my homie to my only....

For much of my cricket watching life, England have been hopeless.

It was one thing losing to the great Australian side of the 90s/00s – even if there was something especially depressing about the merciless hammerings they handed us in successive series over 20 years – but watching us failing to beat an essentially amateur Zimbabwe side in 1996/7 and losing at home to a distinctly average New Zealand side in 1999 was to watch a side with no ideas and no sense of direction. Team selection was haphazard at best, and we lurched from disaster to disaster.

Somewhere along the line, this changed. It probably began at some point in 2000/01, when we stole a series in Pakistan in the gloom at Karachi, but slowly but surely we began to win games. At first it was a simple question of becoming harder to beat, but eventually we began to force the pace in games and to win with style. The joyously received Ashes victory in 2005 was probably something of a blip, but we’ve now won the Ashes three out of the last four series, including a resounding, ruthless pummelling of the Aussies last winter. At the start of the current series against India, the current number one Test side in the world, we needed to win the 4 test series by two clear tests to become officially the best Test cricket side in the world. After a brilliant win at Lords in the first test, we’ve just beaten India at Trent Bridge to take a 2-0 lead with a massive 319 run victory with a whole day to spare.

We are on the cusp of reaching the top of the rankings in world cricket. I can hardly believe it.

I was lucky enough to spend both Saturday and Sunday at Trent Bridge watching the game; two glorious days in which I witnessed my first test match hattrick, glorious hundreds by Rahul Dravid and Ian Bell, over 400 runs scored in a day and a very controversial run out incident. In spite of the huge win, this game was on a knife edge for long periods and India had their foot on our throats at least twice, but were unable to conclusively take the game away from us. The game was in the balance until lunchtime on Sunday and then India suddenly subsided to a crushing defeat.

India’s body language in this game has been awful: England’s body language in the field has always been dynamic and urgent, even when we were hopelessly behind on Saturday afternoon, with the players moving in with every ball and encouraging each other all the time.  Soon enough, from being behind the asking, Stuart Broad took that hattrick and turned the game on its head. India, by contrast, even when in front and with a real chance to seize the initiative in the match on Sunday morning, have seemed passive and lacking in urgency, with static players, half-hearted boundary chases and a general sense of lethargy.  If you didn’t know differently, you probably wouldn't pick the Indians as being the highest ranked side on display.

How many English sporting sides in history would you be able to describe as ruthless? Not many, but I really think that this team really has grown to become the best test side in the world. There’s loads of room for improvement, I’m sure…. But for the moment we really look as though we’re on top of the world and deserve to be there. For an England fan, accustomed to disappointment, that feels a bit weird.  There was quite a large part of me that wanted the Aussies to make more of a game of it as we crushed them at Melbourne over Christmas, and another part of me that wouldn't have minded if Sachin Tendulkar made his 100th international 100 today and held England up for a bit.  The England team, however, are nowhere near as sentimental.

Interestingly, I have never seen as many drunk people at a game of cricket as I did at Trent Bridge yesterday afternoon. I’m hardly a saint, and when we go to a couple of days at the Test, we like to have a drinking day on the Saturday, sometimes in fancy dress (hats off to the guys dressed in full sou'westers yesterday, by the way, and their companion dressed as a fish... see above) and a quieter day on the Sunday watching the game. Yesterday though, I saw a fist fight at a game of cricket for the first time, and there were loads of guys by the bars who were incoherently drunk and pushing each other around and into other people.  I was also slightly uncomfortable with the booing that accompanied the controversial run out decision involving Ian Bell.  It was a strange one, sure, but the Indians did nothing outside the laws of the game and the umpires were impeccable.  The booing that rang around the ground when the umpires and the Indian team took to the field after tea was shocking, and it only stopped when a reprieved Ian Bell walked out to bat shortly afterwards (even if the irritating old guy behind me didn't notice for another 20 minutes, moaning on and on about how the incident had ruined his day).

Annoyingly, the unpleasantness could have been avoided if the authorities in the ground had bothered to tell the crowd on the PA what had happened before anyone walked out.  They could have announced that MS Dhoni had withdrawn the Indian appeal and that Bell -- who was absolutely out according to the rules of the game -- would be able to resume his innings.  They actually waited an hour before doing that, at which point the crowd gave the Indians a standing ovation.... still, why bother telling the paying customer what was happening when it was actually happening?  It seems to me that we were witnesses to a wonderfully sporting act by the Indian team -- something which I'm not sure could or would happen in many other sports -- and yet they perhaps didn't get their due for their generosity from the crowd.  Well, unless you imagine that being booed and harangued as cheats was their due, anyway.....

A great match and a marvellous weekend, all the same.

I want to be there again....

Look, I know this is a bit random, but I was asked to write something about my memories of the Trent Bridge Test against Australia in 2005.... and I quickly got a bit carried away and wrote something of an essay.  I'm sure my memory is not the most reliable guide, but I'm also not sure if it matters all that much if I missed two wickets or four when I went to fetch that bacon sandwich... I still missed that amazing catch.  But no matter how much my memory may be playing tricks on me, everytime I look at the match scorecard, the result stays the same and I was there.

All that work writing it up, so shame to waste it, eh?  Of limited interest to most of you, I'm sure.... but that's always true of what I write here.....

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The first test match that I ever attended was the fifth day of the Ashes test against the Australians at Trent Bridge in 1993. It wasn’t an vintage England side by any means, featuring the likes of Mark Lathwell, Mark Ilott, Martin McCague and Peter Such against Allan Border’s rampant Aussies. Against the odds, England took the game to the last day and Richie Benaud announced the gate prices and a friend and I decided to go. England couldn’t quite force the win, with one SR Waugh – not for the first or for the last time - proving an immoveable object, although we did get to see Graeme Thorpe’s hundred on debut. I was hooked, and Trent Bridge became my ground of choice for cricket watching…. Even before my job actually took me to Nottingham and a house less than a mile from the ground (coincidence! Honestly!)

I watched England get pounded by Australia in both 1997 and 2001. On both occasions, defeat here sealed the fate of the series, and I was forced to endure the sight of Shane Warne dancing on the pavilion roof with a stump on both occasions. The defeat by 264 runs in 1997 was bad enough, but the miserable collapse of 2001 was just awful: the weather was poor and the game was all but over by the time that Shane Warne goaded Mark Ramprakash out of his crease shortly before the close on the second day, dooming the game to an early finish. What was worse was that I was watching the action from my front room, within range of the cheers of the crowd, and knowing that I was increasingly unlikely to get more than half a day’s play as England slipped to a miserable 7 wicket defeat within 3 days. On that occasion, I watched Warne celebrating whilst sat in the Parr stand dressed as Obi Wan Kenobi. At least the fancy dress was fun, even if we had a very short Darth Vader and the campest storm trooper in the Imperial Navy.

Hopes were high in 2005. The series was already pulsating and England were level in the series at 1-1 going into this game, but the momentum swing from the first test had been colossal, and I’d already been present to watch England pushing hard for a win on the Sunday of the ultimately drawn third test at Old Trafford (we weren’t in fancy dress, but I take my hat off to the smurfs who braved the whole of a mostly washed out Saturday wearing only white shorts and entirely painted blue. I bet they haven’t got those stains off those seats yet….

I nearly didn’t get there at all. I had bought the tickets for the game roughly a year in advance, but as summer approached, my girlfriend informed me that her brother was getting married. In Italy. On Saturday 27th August. The day of the test match. I’d had the tickets longer than this guy had been going out with his fiancée. No! How could this be happening to ME? I mentioned this fact to my girlfriend, and in a fit of pique she promptly rang her father to discuss the situation.

“…Well, it IS the Ashes”

I love that man.

As it turns out, the wedding was postponed, but not until I’d already won priceless brownie points by VERY RELUCTANTLY agreeing to attend the wedding. Oh, how glad was I that I wasn’t in Italy when this game was played. Can you imagine? I still wake up in a cold sweat just thinking about what I might have missed.  The girlfriend?  I married her of course.  Or perhaps I should say that she still decided it was worth marrying a cricket tragic like me....

We had tickets for both the Saturday and the Sunday, and as always the plan was fancy dress and beer in the cheaper seats on the first day, then some serious cricket watching from the posh seats on the Sunday. Our theme this year was “Spanish Cardinals”, and the six of us were dressed in matching red robes with white gloves, jewelled rings and ridiculous stick-on facial hair. We were sat in the front of the upper tier of the Parr Stand, and at the last minute painted up a banner to hang over the side: “Nobody Expects the King of Spain!”. We thought it a fairly obvious reference to Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition and to England’s very own wheelie bin, Ashley Giles, but Henry Blofeld on TMS seemed to be very confused by it, even when a very patient Victor Marks tried explaining it to him.

The game itself was nicely poised, with Australia reduced to 99-5 in response to 477 when Matthew Hoggard discovered his outswinger on Friday evening. After Katich and Gilchrist added 50-or so runs in the morning, I was sent out for bacon sandwiches. The atmosphere around the ground is usually fantastic at a test match, especially for the Australian game, and it was buzzing. Wearing fancy dress always attracts a fair bit of attention to, and you find yourself chatting away with people dressed up as cowboys or nuns or queuing at the cashpoints with a murder (surely that’s the only appropriate collective noun) of Hannibal Lecters. I swear we don’t dress up for the attention or to be on tv, but dressing up definitely adds to the whole test match experience, although I concede that the beer may play a part too. I was away from my seat for less than five overs, and in that time no fewer than four wickets fell. Some I saw, but the one that I really missed was Andrew Strauss’ sensational, stretching catch to remove Adam Gilchrist. Every single time I see that catch, as Strauss tumbles, reaching for the ball with both hands before finally, impossibly, stretching out and snaffling it with one hand, it makes me feel just a little bit sick. It was a pretty average bacon sandwich too. Gutted.

The game was on fire now as Australia would now be following on for the first time since Karachi in 1988/89. Even some huge sixes (as big as I’ve ever seen at Trent Bridge, right out of the ground above the new Fox Road stand) from Brett Lee couldn’t stop Australia subsiding to a total of 218. Simon Jones took 5-44 bowling high velocity reverse swing from the Radcliffe Road End and the Aussies were in total disarray. As a long-suffering England supporter, witness to all too many batting collapses and miserable innings defeats, it felt both sweet and like the end of an era to see the Aussies humbled like this. It might not even have been the best tactical decision by Vaughan and Fletcher to enforce it, but the aussies were down and we were trying to finish them off. I’d never seen either and English or an Australian team play like this. It was spine-tingling.

Australia’s second innings is probably remembered best for the moment when Gary Pratt enter the English Cricket pantheon as he swooped to run out Ricky Ponting just as he was approaching his fifty. In the crowd, several beers in, I had absolutely no idea of the storm brewing over the English use of substitute fielders to allegedly rest their bowlers (and as it happened, Pratt was on the field for Simon Jones, who only bowled 4 overs in the innings and played no further part in the series). I did, however, have a grandstand view from my seat alongside the pavilion as Ricky Ponting let loose a foul-mouthed torrent of abuse at an utterly impassive Duncan Fletcher. I think I even saw Duncan smirking as he realised the extent to which Ponting (and the whole Australian team) had lost the plot. They were rattled now and no mistake. In the end, steady batting from Clarke and Katich took them to stumps at 222-4. What an amazing day. To be honest, I’m not sure I remember much of what happened once Ponting was gone and the Australian innings began to consolidate. I DO remember that the Dame Edna Everages won the fancy dress competition at tea and got to meet Mike Gatting to pick up their prize, but it was hard to feel too disappointed as they were both excellent and – as a fancy dress summit between overs between the Hound and Fox Road Stands revealed – very friendly. The most intense session of Test Cricket I have ever seen was Allan Donald bowling full throttle at Michael Atherton at Trent Bridge in 1998. This was the best full day’s play.

…until the Sunday.

Tired bowlers, seriously missing the bite that Simon Jones offered, allowed the Australians to finish their innings on 387 leaving England a paltry looking 129 to win. What followed is the most tense passage of play I have ever seen, as magnificent fast bowling from Brett Lee at the Ratcliffe Road End and devilish leg-spin and massive presence from Shane Warne at the Pavilion End saw England crumble. We were cruising until Warne took the ball and then we fell: 1-32. 2-36. 3-57. 4-57. Surely not. KP and Fred calmed the nerves, but then KP (as he does) played a ridiculous shot and Brett Lee reversed one at 95mph to castle Freddie. 6-111. 7-116. Never have I been more pleased to have Ashley Giles in the side. Never rated the King of Spain as a bowler, although he clearly did a job, but England were not blessed with bowlers who could bat, and the solidity he added to the order was – as demonstrated here, but again at the Oval in this series – was priceless. Hoggy? Well, he closed his eyes and hit the winning boundary, didn’t he? He’d been quiet with the ball for much of the series, but here he was legendary. I’ve never been tenser in my life, and my friend who had been present on the last day at Edgbaston was religiously clinging onto his lucky hat and rocking gently, saying “not again, not again…”. Unbelievable cricket. I was so tense I didn’t even get around to eating my lunch. The feeling after the winning runs were hit was not so much joy as a feeling of overwhelming relief. Can you imagine if we had lost the game from that situation? We’re still talking about Headingley ’81. Can you imagine having to listen to Aussies banging on about Trent Bridge 2005 for the rest of time?

The best thing about it? Shane Warne didn’t get to dance with a stump on the pavilion roof. England were 2-1 and surely this time we wouldn’t blow it? Would we? What a series. My two favourite Christmas presents that year? A signed photo of Andrew Flintoff roaring as he dismissed Adam Gilchrist in that series and a photo of the pavilion taken from our seats at Trent Bridge at the moment England won, where Glenn McGrath has his chin resting on the balcony rail in despair as above him the English team celebrate.

Brilliant. Cricket. Bloody hell.

.......oh, and for my American readers: here's how cricket works.

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

Got it?

I make the fire but I miss the fire fight....

So Wayne Rooney has been banned for two games for his foul-mouthed tirade into a pitchside camera as he completed a hat-trick in Saturday's match against West Ham.  He apparently accepts the charge, but not the ban.  Like all things in football, this seems to have stimulated an enormous amount of debate, with people arguing the toss from every conceivable angle.  Quite why anyone would seem surprised by this, given the form of footballers in general and Rooney in particular, is something of a mystery to me.  Earlier this season, another England international, Ashley Cole, accidentally shot a student with a .22 air rifle at Chelsea's training ground.  He got away unpunished.  These people, it seems, do not have to abide by the same rules and standards as the rest of us.

I'm pretty sure we already had a pretty good idea of this fact, however... so can anyone really say they were genuinely surprised by any of this?  Seems pretty par for the course to me.

I've been reading a biography of Harold Larwood, the great English fast bowler from the 1920s and 30s.  Times, I think it's safe to say, have changed.  Larwood was the son of a miner and spent several years down the pit himself before earning a contract with Nottinghamshire.  His first contract to play cricket was actually for the same money as he earned down the mine, and did not include expenses for kit and travel, but Larwood took it all the same as a way out into the sunlight from the darkness, the sweat and the danger.  He was the son of devout methodists, and he barely even drank when he started playing.... although this soon changed under his Notts captain, Arthur Carr, who was something of a bon-viveur and convinced that a fast bowler could not work without copious amounts of beer to fortify him.  A "Nottingham Sandwich", a fast bowler's lunch during a game, was apparently beer - as many as four pints - and a couple of cigarettes, perhaps accompanied by some cheese.  Did Larwood get into any trouble as a result of this; thrown out of any nightclubs; involved in any fights or caught with antique prostitutes?  No. He went out and took hundreds of wickets.

Larwood, incredibly for a fast bowler (even at the time), stood a mere 5'7" and weighed 11 stone, and yet he was one of the fastest bowlers who ever lived... probably comfortably exceeding 100mph, and he was unerringly accurate with it.  A blow from a ball he delivered was said to have an impact of some 2 tonnes, which given that batsmen barely had adequate padding, never mind a helmet, seems a remarkable statistic.  Larwood was uncommonly good, then, but he always made it clear that he only became this good through application and hard, hard work.  He had been down the mines and he knew that if he didn't put his heart and soul into his job as a professional cricketer, then he would be back down the mines in a flash.  He wanted something else from his life and he was prepared to work for it.  He also apparently never forgot where he had come from, and tried never to do anything that would make his family or his friends or his former colleagues down the mine ashamed of him.  He was a real hero.

Harold Larwood is, of course, infamous for his role in the 1932/33 Bodyline Ashes series, when "Leg Theory" bowling designed to curb the runmaking of Don Bradman threatened to bring down the entire British Empire.  It seems almost incredible now, less than a century later, that this could be true, but it really happened.  Imagine what those guys would have made of Wayne Rooney or Ashley Cole.  Larwood was made the sacrificial lamb for the Bodyline series, and as well as bowling himself into the ground during the series (at the end of a day's play, Larwood would ring blood out his socks and the soles of his feet turned black - he was never the same player again), he was never picked for England again and eventually emigrated to Australia.  Shamefully, he never really received his due and was shunned by the English cricketing community as a punishment for something that was not even against the laws of the game.  He was amongst the very best players this country has ever produced, and yet got almost nothing for his efforts.

Rooney may or may not turn out to be a great player yet, but it seems unlikely that he will go to his grave ungarlanded and counting the pennies.  If he has any humility, it is well hidden.

We had a better class of hero in them days, son.

gabba gabba hey!

The latest round of one of sport's oldest rivalries begins tonight: at around about midnight, UK time, the first ball will be bowled at the Gabba in the First Test of the 2010/11 Ashes series. For cricket fans, it's an exciting time.... for an English cricket fan especially, these are exciting times. I've grown up watching Australia pounding England in the cricket. The competition dates back to 1862, and before the 1989 series, it was pretty even with 87 tests won by Australia, 66 by England and a further 74 draws. Between 1989 and 2005, there was a prolonged spell of Australian dominance: of the 43 matches played, Australia won 28 to England's 7, with 8 draws. All bar one of those England wins came when the series had already been lost.... With that in mind, the wild celebrations that greeted England's win in 2005 are perhaps understandable - even if we then got hammered 5-0 in the next series to be played in Australia.

England are the current holders of the Ashes, having won the series in England in 2009, and for the first time in a long time, are -- weirdly for a long-time fan of English cricket -- entering the series as favourites... largely because Australian cricket is in an unusual state of disarray and seems to still be finding its feet since the retirement of a whole generation of all-time greats, including Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Steve Waugh, Adam Gilchrist and a host of other match-winners.

Before anyone gets too carried away though, here are a few cautionary statistics:

England have only won 3 of the last 26 tests in Australia since 1986/7 (when England last won the Ashes there)

England have lost 10 of their last 11 tests in Australia.

The First Test will be played at the Gabba in Brisbane, and no visiting side has won in Brisbane since Viv Richards' great West Indian side in 1988.

Since Len Hutton's England side did it in1954/5, no side has lost a test in Brisbane and come back to win the series (Hutton went on to win three more tests and the series).

It seems that there is no such thing as a poor Australian side in Australia, and Ricky Ponting, one of the greatest batsmen ever to play the game, will be keen not to become only the third Australian ever to captain 3 losing sides in the Ashes (the last one ended up being embalmed and buried in England). I would stay up, but when I did for the start of the much-anticipated series in 2006, it was only to watch Steve Harmison deliver the first ball directly into the hands of Andrew Flintoff at second slip..... and then watching through my fingers for the next hour as they tore us to pieces. A sign, sadly, of what was to come in the rest of the disastrous series as England were mercilessly annihilated.

Still, until last summer, England hadn't beaten the Australians at Lords since 1934... Warne and McGrath are gone now, and records exist to be broken.

Come on England!

2-1 to the visitors.

lazing on a sunny afternoon....

I've got a few pictures for you today.



Following on from yesterday's visit to Lincoln Cathedral, this is the view we got from a balcony fairly high up on the west end, just next to the big stained glass window there. From this vantage point you can see all the way down the nave, over the choir screen and down to the east end extension. As you can see, we were really lucky to visit on a day when all of the chairs and pews that usually clutter up the nave of a big church like this had been taken out for some reason. This is how it would have looked in the middle ages, when your average, common-or-garden peasant would have had to stand in the nave looking up at the choir screen towards the altar. There are always three steps up from the nave past the choir screen, and this was supposed to symbolise that the clergy literally existed on a higher plane than their flock. If you look closely at the vaulting on the roof, you might notice that it doesn't quite line up. Our tour guide was convinced that this must have been done deliberately, but I think she's somewhat overestimating the prowess of the builders from about 1000 years ago. York Minster is built on a slight wonk too, and nothing wrong with that. From here, we went up another few flights of narrow stone steps and entered the roof space above the nave itself.

Enough monumental architecture already.



Today I have mostly been watching Nottinghamshire playing Yorkshire in the county championship at Trent Bridge. This competition is pretty poorly attended at the best of times, and a big Test ground like the Bridge is always going to look mostly empty on a day like today, but there were a few hundred people there enjoying the sunshine and watching Notts turn the screw on the Tykes.



...including me.

Let me tell you that three pints, a copy of today's Guardian and a beautiful warm day is a great way to spend a Thursday afternoon. I'm not in the least bit looking forward to going back to work on Monday, I know that much....

Now, look away if you're a bit squeemish, but here's the latest on my eye:



It looks a bit gross at the moment, I know (and if you look really closely, you'll see that the pupil in my right eye is actually a bit oval shaped at the moment). It's not as bad as it looks, I promise you. When I came out of surgery on Monday, the eye was really bloodshot just above the line of my eyelid, where I assume they must have made the incision. Over the last couple of days, this blood has sort of rolled down around my eye to the point where I'm now a little self-conscious when out and about in the street and I'm more than happy to wear a pair of sunglasses. It doesn't hurt or anything, and it should fade over the next couple of days.... but nice, isn't it?

Anyway. C's away tonight with work, so I'm going to put my feet up and catch up on a bit of telly, I think.

"A Mighty Wind" perhaps....?

not to put too fine a point on it....

Another Saturday at the Trent Bridge test match, another set of photos of some idiots in fancy dress.



This was actually one of the easier costumes to put together, and I can't recall seeing any beekeepers in the past, so I think that -- when compared to all the Fred Flintstones, Mexicans and Nuns that turn up every year -- it was pretty original too.


Luckily for the bee, the weather wasn't too hot, so he didn't bake. Sunday was a totally different matter weather-wise, and if he'd been wearing that costume up in the stands today, even though it didn't take England long to wrap up an emphatic victory, he surely would have melted. The rain delay on Saturday morning did however mean that we had a few hours drinking time uninterrupted by anything as inconvenient as cricket, and this meant that there was at least one casualty snoozing in his seat during the afternoon session (...that'll be you, mr. Poll). Still, I was the same at Old Trafford in 2005, so I shouldn't be the one to cast any stones.

Another excellent day, and I take my wide-brimmed and veiled hat off to the Oompa Loompas, who were superb, and also to anyone and everyone else who went to the effort of getting dressed up to partake in this most ridiculous of English traditions. I could do without seeing a fat bloke dressed up as Pamela Anderson and wearing his red swimsuit in a thong stylee. I know it's your stag do, but I'm fairly sure that NO ONE wanted to see that. Special mention here too for the girl from Wolf Blass who asked if she could have her photo taken with us and made a special request for the wasp to be in the picture. Er.... do you mean the bee? No, he's definitely a wasp.... right. So the costumes are not a visual clue for you then? Dear oh dear. Right up there with the NPower girl asking me last year if the legs contained in my viking costume were all mine....

See you next year, although sadly not at Trent Bridge as we sadly haven't got an Ashes test. We'll be back here in 2010 though, I'm sure.



Some people are easily distracted. This one was supposed to be *taking* the photos....

Well done everyone. Another good effort all round.

oh honey, honey....

It's the Trent Bridge test match in a couple of weeks, so as you'd expect, our fancy dress plans have started to come together nicely. I'm not entirely sure why, but it's sort of traditional in England to spend around £50 on a seat at a game of cricket and to then spend the day dressed up in a ludicrous and often entirely impractical costume. I don't know what your picture of the average cricket spectator is, but I'd guess that it probably doesn't include a bunch of guys sat in the drizzling rain wearing only white shorts, white hats and with their bodies painted entirely blue (it's the smurfs, you see....by the end of that day at Old Trafford, you could certainly see where they'd been sitting, that's for sure).

We've been doing this for six or seven years now, and in that time we have attended games dressed as Santa Claus, assorted characters from Star Wars, Fred Flintstone, Spanish Cardinals, Bomber Command [video here] and as Vikings. Some of those years have been more successful than other, but I like to think that on the whole we maintain a pretty high standard. If you're going to dress up to go to the cricket, you might as well do it properly, right? With this in mind, what we choose each year is the subject of much debate. Sometimes we decide very quickly, but most of the time there's a fair bit of too-ing and fro-ing as we moot various ideas. Last year, we nearly went to the game dressed as the British soldiers from Zulu - a great costume - but in the end the idea was thrown out as being culturally insensitive for a game against the Indians and we went as vikings instead. This year's idea actually came up whilst we were sat in the stands watching that game and it met with immediate approval: beekeepers. We're going as beekeepers.

Well, I say that... we're actually going as seven beekeepers and one bee.

The costumes have been quite easy this year, I'm told. The bee keepers simply needed a cheap white boiler suit and a hat or smock with a built in net and the bee costume has now been found (it's apparently very difficult to find a bee costume for a bloke as opposed to a "sexy bee" costume. The mind boggles - both at the concept of a sexy bee and at the concept of my mate Mick wearing one of them).

In a change to our normal routine, we are going to be joined this year by C's dad. He's an avid cricket fan, and we first bonded over Test Match special in his garden in France (none of C's french boyfriends ever really understood cricket, so I was off to something of a flying start there...). This will be the first test match that I will have gone to with him, and I actually thought he was surprisingly keen on the fancy dress idea too, saying that he thought his beard was the perfect accessory. Fair enough. C. was talking him through the costume the other day and asking him if he thought he would prefer the hat or the smock, and was a little taken aback by quite how vehemently her father pushed for the smock and seemed to think that the hat/boilersuit combo was a terrible idea.

It turns out he thought that we were going as beefeaters (or perhaps as seven beefeaters and one raven).

It's an easy mistake to make over an international phone line, I suppose, and definitely one to consider for another year.

I still think that beard's going to work out well for him though.

Three weeks to go.

That weekend coincides with my wedding anniversary, actually... although on the actual night itself, I'm off to see REO Speedwagon at Rock City.

!

(that poor, poor woman....).

going for gold...

What, as Henry Kelly might once have said, am I?

-> I was first published in 1864

-> I am now in my 145th edition

-> I'm highly collectible: my first edition sold for one shilling and now changes hands for upwards of £20,000

-> That first edition ran to 112 pages, but between my distinctive mustard yellow covers this year are 1680 pages, all of them dedicated to my chosen subject



My Wisden arrived this morning.

I buy this every year, and now have twenty-one different editions of the Almanack itself and each of the four accompanying compendiums. Why do I have hundreds and thousands of pages worth of cricketing statistics and other assorted nuggets of information on the game and the people who play it? I'm not sure really. I just love it. I might be in a minority of one here, but for me it is an intensely comforting book, one to be dipped into over the course of the next twelve months and for years to come. It is a keen reminder of times past, but it is also a harbinger of summers to come. It is a window into an older, more ordered and conservative world, but it is also fiercely independent and sometimes outspoken. You have no doubt already written this off as an incredibly tedious book, but for fans of cricket, it remains the bible. Far more than just a record of games gone, it is a mine of comment, information and - yes - amusement. This is not a book that takes itself - or its subject - too seriously: amidst its otherwise fairly sombre and straightfaced tributes to various people associated with the game of cricket, the 1965 edition contained the following obituary:

"CAT, Peter, whose ninth life ended on November 5, 1964, was a well-known cricket-watcher at Lord's, where he spent 12 of his 14 years. He preferred a close-up view of the proceedings and his sleek, black form could often be seen prowling on the field of play when the crowds were biggest. He frequently appeared on the television screen. Mr SC Griffith, secretary of MCC, said of him: `He was a cat of great character and loved publicity'."

Not funny ha-ha, perhaps, but if any of us provoke as fond a tribute when we pass on, then I think we'll be doing pretty well.

As a result of the book's longevity too, it provides us with a uniquely slanted perspective on the history of the last two-hundred years. One of the hardest editions to find is the one from 1919 (which actually features Statue John's grandfather as a cricketer of the year). That year's book contains the lists of war dead; those cricketers killed during the First World War. It is as moving and eloquent as almost anything else I have seen on the same subject. The names of the perhaps great cricketers of the future that were never allowed to fulfill their potential are somehow painfully emblematic of the human tragedy of war. Another famous edition is the copy of the 1939 edition belonging to E.W. Swanton, the distinguished cricket writer. It was the copy that he had with him when he was taken prisoner by the Japanese. It proved so popular with the other Prisoners of War that it had to be reserved in advance like a library book, and could be borrowed for no more than 12 hours at a time. It was stamped "Not subversive" by the guards and became so heavily thumbed that it was rebound by two prisoners using rice paste as glue. Swanton died, aged 92, in 2000 but that very same copy of the book is now on display in the museum at Lord's.

For these kinds of reasons, and for many others besides, Wisden is special and it's somehow more than just another book. It's magical, and I'm very much looking forward to getting stuck into my new copy.

Well Helmut. Will you play or pass?

Hmm. You just can't quite get past that bit about it being a 1,600 page book on cricket, can you?

the hammer of the gods....

So anyway. On Saturday, we went to the Test Match at Trent Bridge in our traditional fancy dress. This year, the theme was VIKINGS....



From l-r: Conan the Terrible, Thor the Great, Freygunnr the Fearsome, Odin the Magnificent, Brynhildr of Long Eaton and (crouching) Dave

Say "Grrr!"



The modern viking nowadays has less of an urgent need to go out pillaging...



"We come from the frozen North in search of fertile lands to pillage. We will perhaps wait until the tea interval"



Many thanks are due to Brynhildr for her fantastic photos, more of which can be found here. I'd've brought my own camera, but sadly I had no pockets... frankly it's no wonder the vikings were always stealing what they needed.

Quote of the day was from Chantelle, the N-Power girl who greeted me on the gate by looking me up and down and saying:

"Are you really that tall?"

No love, I'm being operated by Frank Oz. Dear oh dear.



Odin the Magnificent sups on his mead and contemplates his nomination as moment of the day on ESPNStar, the TV channel that broadcasts cricket across the subcontinent and (presumably) to millions of people.

Text A for the WG Graces.
Text B for Sylvester and Tweetie-Pie
Text C for the Vikings.

Lots of prizes!

I can only imagine we won comfortably.



It's been a fair old while since I had a fringe.

It was weird.



Because even vikings have a home to go to, you know.

like a record baby....

Sitting behind us in the crowd at the test match yesterday was a hospitality box full of young British Asians (the accents were pure midlands, innit?). India were well on top of the game and were building up a substantial lead over England, putting themselves in an increasingly dominant position. England were toiling away manfully in the field, and although to my eyes the game was an awful lot more absorbing than it had been on the Saturday, I could well understand why the more casual observer might be starting to get bored.

The inhabitants in the box behind me were proudly waving an Indian flag over their balcony and greetng every boundary that the Indian batsmen hit with raucous chants of "India! India! India!".

Fair enough. They were quite noisy, but far less irritating than the increasingly drunken chants of "ENG-GER-LAND, ENG-GER-LAND" emanating from the Barmy Army in the William Clarke Stand. I know it's not Norman Tebbit's cup of tea, but I don't mind it in the least when British citizens don't support the "home" team. Why on earth should anyone feel threatened by that? What's wrong with people celebrating all of the aspects of their heritage? Besides, the run rate was slowing down as the English bowlers started to get into the game, and hits to the boundary were few and far between... so I was starting to get interested in the game. Were England too far behind now to stage a comeback and save the game?

The lack of action from India didn't seem to worry these excitable supporters just behind me though. Oh no. Not when they had Monty to cheer.

When he wasn't weaving a spell with the ball from the Pavilion end, Monty Panesar was fielding just in front of us - well within shouting range.

Monty was born in Luton and lives in Northampton, but he was the first Sikh to play cricket for England, is fast becoming one of the best bowlers in the world and is very big news indeed. He's polite, well-spoken, tee-total and extremely talented. For young British Asians, it would be hard to think of a better role-model.

Every move he made was greeted by an enthusiastic shout of "MONNNNNNNTTTTTYYYY!" from the young India fans behind me. At one point, there was a slightly frustrated cry of "Monty! Make something happen!"

It seems that for the young British Indian, test match cricket is a great game as long as one of India or Monty Panesar wins.

Sometimes I love this country. I really do.

funny clothes, tinkling bell...

C. finished with the new Harry Potter whilst I was at the cricket yesterday (where I noticed that lots of other people were reading it with the test match as their backdrop). We've only got the one copy in our house, so I was waiting for her to finish before I can get my teeth into it.



So, what did she think? Is it any good?

Well, without wanting to spoil anything for me, she gave me a one word answer:

"No."

Oh dear.

Rather than just drop everything to read this, I reckon I might just carry with on with the book I've currently got on the go.


It's about Lance Armstrong and the 2004 Tour de France (which was to be his record-breaking 6th win). In the light of all of the scandals that have erupted in cycling since, some of the sections writing about Michele Ferrari, Alexander Vinokourov, Tyler Hamilton, Bjarne Riis, Floyd Landis and the like can only be read with a strong sense of foreboding and sadness about what we know happened next... positive drugs tests, mainly.... followed by vehement denials and often court cases.

Was Armstrong clean? I don't know.

I'd love to believe that he was, but I'm not sure I completely can.

Does it matter? Surely he's a hero anyway?

Hmm.

As for this year's Tour: well, congratulations to Alberto Contador, but with the best will in the world, that's not going to be what the world remembers, is it?

The Tour will endure, I have no doubts about that.... but the riders are going to have to change.

Anyway, wizardy nonsense can wait for another day.

the price of gas keeps on rising...

This probably isn't of much interest to anyone but me and Hen, but it looks like Allan Donald is back on my street. (For previous installments of "Allan Donald is on my street" news, click here....)

I'm interested because the Trent Bridge Test match starts tomorrow and after the sterling performance of England's second string seamers at Lords last week, the South African fast bowling legend and now England bowling coach has clearly been making a big difference.

Hen is interested because he is still driving an absolutely colossal 4x4 with a plush leather interior and because it's people like him who are destroying our climate.

330 Test wickets notwithstanding, I reckon Jimmy Anderson's improvement over the last few weeks has bought him some slack, but I accept that I may be in a minority on this one.

(have pity on the working man)

I was at my desk the other day when my mobile phone rang. A quick look at the display revealed that it was my the head of my department.

"Hello"
"Hello. Do you want to go to the Test Match on Friday 27th?"

As you know. I like my cricket. I have bought tickets to go to the Saturday and Sunday of the same game. So why was I suspicious?

"Is there a catch?"
"No. You'll just be going with [insert name of one of our outsource partners here] and a couple of other guys from the office"
"Um. Okay then"

And that was it. I was going. Not because I'm especially important (ha!), but more because everyone in the office knows that I like my cricket and that there were some seats going.

So it goes.



I have something of an ambivalent view of corporate hospitality. I know that they pump lots of money into the sports that I love, but as someone who puts his hand in his own pocket and actually pays to go to matches, it's a bit galling when large swathes of the crowd don't appear after lunch because they are too busy being entertained over lavish meals that take longer than the designated break in play. It's almost as if the people being entertained aren't actually interested in the game itself..... Mind you, as I spend one day every year at the Test match getting plastered whilst wearing fancy dress, perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to criticise.

....it's just that corporate hospitality isn't something that really happens to me.

Still, this is a game that is taking place a 5 minute walk from my house; my ticket and all of my meals and drinks for the day will be completely free; I will be getting paid for my time; I won't have to go into the office... and - most importantly of all - it's a match I would happily have bought a ticket for myself and taken a day off.

What can you do?

I've just seen the menu:

Lunch (13:00-13:40)

Caesar Salad with a twist!
Topped with a Roasted Fillet of Chicken and Crispy Bacon

Melon opera served with Summer Berries & Fruit Compote

oO0

Peppered Sirloin Beef

Smoked Haddock, Salmon & Spinach Roulade

Filo Tartlet of Creamy Brie, Cherry Tomato and Pesto
Sat on a Rocket and Herb Salad.
Roasted Vegetable Kebab with a Spicy Scented Rice Timbale

Cherry Tomatoes with Balsamic Syrup & Spring Onion Salad
Pasta Salad with a Honey & Mustard Dressing
Hot New Potatoes

oOo

Cup of Rich Chocolate Mousse
Topped with Fresh Rasberries
Accompanied with a crisp biscuit.

oOo

Selection of Cheeses
Accompanied with Grapes, walnuts and cheese biscuits

oOo

Freshly Brewed Fairtrade Coffee
And Mints

oOo

Afternoon Tea (15:40-16:00)

Freshly Brewed Fairtrade Tea

Mini scones
Served with preserves and clotted cream
Assorted Fruit Frangis

(pedant's note: capitalisation and line breaks all as found)

Now, I know I probably won't get to eat all of that, but I still reckon it's going to be quite a tall order to get through that lot and not miss any cricket. Forty minutes for lunch? Are you mad? On a normal day at the cricket it takes me pretty much that long to get a sandwich and a pint, nevermind sit through a table-waited 5 course meal with coffee!

Do you think it would be rude of me to excuse myself from those vital corporate conversations at the meal table and take my plate out to my seat?

Yeah. Not going to happen is it?

Do you reckon I can turn up in shorts, with a Test Match Special Radio and a copy of Wisden?

No. That's not going to happen either.

I wonder how I'll cope?

Safe to say that my Saturday at the same game will be a somewhat different experience.

(Although please note that we are now going to the game as vikings. Zulu is being saved up for next year when it will apparently be more politically palatable to be wearing the uniform of the colonial aggressor when playing the South Africans....yes, yes. I know.)

go grease lightning...

Since Des Walker's parents moved away and he stopped needing to come around to bring his kids to visit and to do things like paint their front gate, there haven't really been many former international sporting stars hanging around this quiet suburban street. This might all be about to change though, and there's the intriguing possibility that the number of Test wickets taken by residents around here may be about to rise by the small matter of 330.

There's been a big 4x4 parked right outside my house all weekend, and this morning I saw its owner climbing inside and driving off, and it was none other than the South African fast bowling legend Allan Donald. How cool is that? He's number 16 on the all time Test wicket taking tables, for heaven's sake!

Given that Donald has just been appointed as England's fast bowling coach, and given that England were playing the West Indies in a one day international at Trent Bridge yesterday (a 5 minute walk away), perhaps it's not so surprising that he wouldn't head off straight after the game and that he still might be hanging out near the ground the day after the game. There aren't any decent hotels around here, but he could have been staying with friends or something and was only now heading off.

On the other hand though, when I went out for a run a few hours later, I saw that the car had returned and was parked up outside my house again. Maybe it wasn't just a flying visit after all. There are a number of houses on the street that have either recently been sold or leased out and the English national Academy (where I assume the bowling coach would do most of his work) is based in Loughborough, a short drive from here.... so it's just possible that I might be seeing a lot more of "White Lightning" over the next few months.

I was at Trent Bridge in 1998 for that famous duel between Donald and Michael Atherton, and it remains the most incredible session of Test cricket that I have ever seen.



Do you reckon it's safe to ask him about that yet? He was pretty angry at the time - I'm not sure that 9 years is quite long enough to calm down.

it seems like years since its been clear....

Right.

That's it.

I know it's ridiculously English of me to talk about this, but I am now officially bored of the weather we've been getting this summer. It just has not stopped raining in weeks. Last month was apparently the wettest June since records began (which sounds impressive, but records only began in 1914, which isn't really so very long ago in the grand scheme of things, but I suppose the wettest summer in the last 90 or so years is still pretty wet).

Frankly I'm amazed that there's any water left in the sky to fall, but it's been relentless.

Normally this doesn't really bother me - my bedroom when I was growing up had a partially flat roof and I used to love the sound of the rain beating down on it. I like rain. Hell, I spent a weekend in a tent on a muddy farm a couple of weeks ago, and that was just brilliant.... but this is ridiculous. Occasionally the sun comes out and it looks like things might be looking up.... but before too long it's pissing it down again with renewed fury, often with the sun still out (raincoat, umbrella and sunglasses? It's quite the look this year). You can't seem to go anywhere without getting caught in it. The last few times I've been out running, I've been drenched. Now, I quite like running in the rain once in a while, but every time I go? No thanks.

It was nice for most of the day today.....and then I went out to play football and it rained solidly for about 4 hours.

Is it me? Is it something I've done? Was it something I said?

I'm supposed to be going to the One Day International between England and the West Indies at Trent Bridge on Saturday. D'you think I should get the hint and maybe take an umbrella? Or perhaps I should just save myself the trouble of a drenching and stay in bed?

I suppose it could be worse: at least I don't live in Hull.

Not because of the floods.

Just generally.

I can't remember, tell me what's his name?

We've done Santa.

We've done Spanish Cardinals.

We've done the Flintstones.

We've done Biggles.

We've done Star Wars.

It's one of the biggest decisions of the year and it simply cannot be rushed.

Well, if I have achieved nothing else today, I reckon that the thorny issue of what fancy dress we are going to wear on the Saturday of the Trent Bridge test match has now finally been decided.



Yup. We're going to do "Zulu".

Well, we're going to do the British soldiers from "Zulu" anyway. I don't imagine that anyone is that keen to go as a Zulu warrior (which if memory serves me correctly is a costume that consists of a grass skirt and some grass leg warmers).

It's a pretty simple costume to put together too: red jacket, pith helmet, medals, white straps.... perhaps even a sabre or service revolver or two.



Most importantly of all, it's a costume that allows plenty of scope for ludicrous facial hair.

What do you mean it might be a slightly culturally insensitive choice for a game against India? Surely it's clear that we're aiming for the British Army on the Cape, not the British army on the sub-continent?

To my eyes that's a wholly different set of atrocities, isn't it?



And we get to pretend to be Michael Caine all day too. Who could object to that?

Altogether now: "Stop throwing.....those bloody spears.........AT ME!"*

* yes, I'm aware that Caine doesn't actually say this in the film. But everyone thinks he does, and that's what matters.